Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani to head RBI committee on digital payments; all you need to know

The committee will assess the current status of digital payments in financial inclusion and how the safety and security of digital payments can be improved.

RBI said in a statement that it is to understand the current situation of digitisation of payments in the country.

The Reserve Bank of India today announced setting up of a five-member committee headed by the former chairman at Unique Identification Authority of India – Nandan Nilekani to encourage digital payments and improve financial inclusion through digitisation.

RBI’s former deputy governor H.R. Khan; Kishore Sansi, former MD and CEO at Vijaya Bank; Aruna Sharma, former secretary at Ministry of Information Technology and Steel and Sanjay Jain, chief innovation officer at CIIE, IIM Ahmedabad will be the part of the committee.

Laying out the terms of reference of the committee, RBI said in a statement that it is to understand the current situation of digitisation of payments in the country, identify its current gaps and suggest ways to close them.

It will also assess the current status of digital payments in financial inclusion and how the safety and security of digital payments can be improved. RBI further stressed how to improve customer trust in using the digital channel for payments and how to deepen them with a medium-term strategy.

The report will be submitted within 90 days after its first meeting, said RBI.

India’s card payments increased 43% to 10.61 trillion rupees from the preceding year. UPI-based payments increased 16 times year-on-year to 1.01 trillion rupees, according to RBI data released in August. Digital payments in India are expected to rise by five times to$1 trillion by 2023, according to Credit Suisse.